(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI has been providing local police forces with “stingrays”—technology that simulate cell towers and collect signals from devices nearby—but the bureau doesn’t want you to know that.
Documents obtained by the Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability and the ACLU show that the FBI has been forcing local police departments to sign nondisclosure agreements before providing them with stingrays.
“Information obtained through use of the equipment is FOR LEAD PURPOSES ONLY and may not be used as primary evidence in any affidavits, hearings, or trials,” the FBI’s nondisclosure agreement states, according to the heavily redacted records.
The privacy groups argued that this practice denies people their right to a fair trial.
“This deception likely results in defendants being denied the ability to know how a case was constructed against them, degrading their right to a fair trial,” PPSA said Monday, reacting to the recently disclosed records.
PPSA explained that police agencies can secretly use stingrays to undergo “parallel construction of evidence,” in which law enforcement learns of criminal activity through one source, but then gives the information to a law enforcement agency to “reconstruct” the investigation so that the origin of that second investigation is different from the original source.
The FBI came under criticism in 2015 for using nondisclosure agreements to conceal the use of stingrays. At the time, the bureau purported to back away from that practice, saying that NDAs “should not be construed to prevent a law enforcement officer from disclosing to the court or a prosecutor the fact that this technology was used in a particular case.”
But the FBI appears to be again engaging in what it disavowed some eight years ago, according to the recently disclosed records.
“The FBI employs a ‘jigsaw’ or patchwork theory of disclosure, documents show, to keep even minor details about cell site simulators hidden from the public. A May 2020 email also makes clear that the FBI will not deploy a cell site simulator at the request of local police until they ‘have read and acknowledged the FBI’s Nondisclosure agreement,’” the ACLU said.
“Previously released versions of the FBI’s NDA went so far as to require police to drop charges in criminal cases rather than disclose that they used the technology.”
Bob Goodlatte, the former Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and PPSA senior policy advisor, called for Congress to intervene.
“The important question posed by privacy advocates is: Why are police departments and the FBI going to such lengths to conceal information about a technology that is public knowledge?” he said.
“Congress should demand to know if there is any basis at all for these non-disclosure agreements—and how common parallel construction really is in practice.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
